Full Circle
by Mango Marbles
Summary: Lucifer gives Sam a very simple choice as a way of persuading him to become his vessel again. Say yes, save Mary. Set sometime after 12x03, The Foundry. Character death.
1. Start Again

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

He started coming to Sam in dreams almost immediately after he found his new vessel, but Sam never told Dean.

It wore him down and he no longer seemed able to get a good night's rest, but Sam could still hunt and he didn't want the fact that Satan paid regular visits to him weighing on Dean.

Dean didn't need that. Combined with their mother's leaving, of her own free-will and not because of a demonic death, the British Men of Letters, and just knowing that Lucifer was walking around the earth and no longer in Hell, the burden of that knowledge would be too much.

So Sam kept quiet about his restless nights. He knew that Dean saw the dark smudges under his eyes and the features of his face growing gaunt, but he had a fresh pot of coffee made each morning and a plastic smile. Dean would want to address it later, sure, but he left good enough alone for now.

Sam leafed through the pages of another worn book, its spine barely keeping everything together in its battered state. He couldn't read the tiny script, and it wasn't due to them being fourteenth century English and having that slight unfamiliarity of a different age about them. His tired eyes couldn't focus long enough to understand what he was reading. They burned and felt dry, no matter how many times Sam pressed the heels of his hands against them or closed them to try and regain some moisture.

Dean would be happy. He was researching because their mother asked him to. Mary was on her way over since she stumbled across something unusual while working on tying up her loose ends and asked for some help from them.

Unfortunately, the unusual thing she found wasn't due to her missing over thirty years on Earth. It _was_ unusual, even to Sam.

But she asked for help and it would be hours before she arrived at the bunker yet, so Sam was determined to have some information for her by then.

Not like he was sleeping when she called anyway. Not like Dean, who slept through his phone ringing.

Which Sam realized was because he left his phone in the library. Mary was worried about it, but believed Sam when he said that Dean was fine.

And yes, he was sure that Dean was fine. How did he know? He peeked in his brother's room and found him sprawled out and snoring. And yes, Dean didn't hate her. He might not agree with her decision, but they understand that she needed some time on her own to adjust.

And maybe that last part was a bit of a lie, but Sam understood her need to get away from it all. He understood what it was like to feel like a stranger among people he should know.

So he prepared for another family hunting trip and whatever tension the mood between Dean and Mary would bring, hoping that, at the very least, he wouldn't become a liability to his family from his lack of sleep.

* * *

 _It was his smile, Sam thought, that earned Lucifer his nickname of Serpent. The way his lips curled over his teeth and bared them._

" _Sam," he greeted. "Good to see you. It's been so long."_

" _Get out of my head. Just let me sleep," Sam said. "In peace."_

" _Say 'yes'. You can have all the peace you want," he said._

 _He walked in circles around Sam, both of them trapped in a cylindrical room without windows or doors. It reminded Sam of Bobby's panic room. Vaguely._

 _It was missing the stench of whiskey and Old Spice._

" _That's never gonna happen," Sam said._

 _Lucifer shook his head. "No, I think it will, Sam. I think that you're going to hit a new low, and you'll need me like I need you. We're going to strike a mutually beneficial deal, Sam."_

" _I would never let you in again."_

" _You were adamant the first time," he said. He took a chair, spun it, and sat with his forearms rested on the back of it. "So, so adamant. I even told you last time that you would say 'yes' within six months. In Detroit. And you did, didn't you?"_

" _That was different," Sam said._

" _The circumstances might have been different, but I knew then that you would let me in. And I know now that you will again. Only this time, I think it will be within the week."_

Sam sat up with a gasp, that drew the attention of both Dean and his mother towards him from the front seat of the Impala. Questions asked, but not spoken.

"I'm fine," Sam answered. "Just a run-of-the-mill nightmare."

He added a laugh at the end, but neither of them were fooled.

Dean didn't want to know, but needed to know.

Mary didn't need to know, but wanted to know.

Sam just wanted (and needed) a night of sleep without The Devil taking over his dreams.

Dean gave him the we're-talking-about-this-later look.

Mary gave him what he assumed was her you-know-you-can-talk-to-me look.

Sam pulled on another plastic smile and stared out the window. He noticed it the first time he came back from Hell, after the wall broke, but now the landscape was a prominent reminder of how dulled everything looked after his stint in The Cage.

He thought it'd all be brighter, but things only ever darkened in his life.

* * *

The hunt was easy. The creature rare, but killed with a traditional beheading.

They were on their way back to the motel in no time. Dean tried to find a place a little nicer than their usual lodging choices for Mary's sake, but there hadn't been much to pick from and Mary insisted that she would be fine. She was a hunter, too, and could handle a seedy, no-tell motel.

Sam heard their breathing even out as they fell asleep, but Sam stayed awake.

He watched the bright numbers of the digital clock on the nightstand change minute-after-minute, until his exhausted body couldn't take it anymore and pulled him into sleep.

" _You or her, Sam?" he asked._

" _What are you talking about?" Sam demanded._

 _Lucifer circled him, grinning. "You. Or. Her," he repeated. "For being so smart, you are really dumb."_

" _Her who?" Sam asked._

 _Lucifer's grin just widened. "I always take what I want, Sam. No matter what I have to do or how long I have to wait to get it, I_ will _get what I want."_

It was a deep sleep that he was left in after Lucifer vacated his dream, but something kept falling onto his forehead. He flinched every time, but couldn't figure out what exactly caused it. The sensation was oddly familiar, but kind of tickled, and roused him from his sleep (which he still desperately needed) into a lull between waking and dreaming.

And there was dripping.

Drip onto his forehead. Flinch away.

Drip.

Flinch.

Drip.

Flinch.

After the third time, he was more aware and swiped his fingertips over his forehead to see what the hell was dripping on him.

The warmth made his eyes shoot open, wide and afraid, already knowing what he would see in the moonlight.

Mary stared down at him with unseeing eyes, a red cut across her stomach leaking blood.

"No!" he yelled.

Dean woke up and went straight to action as Mary's body was engulfed in flames.

Sam figured he knew the drill by now, as Dean grabbed him and dragged him from the motel room. Dean knew that once someone was on the ceiling, they were beyond saving, but it didn't stop Sam from reaching up and trying to get Mary down.

And all he could see was Jessica, years ago, burning with her dead eyes set on him below.

* * *

"It's not your fault," Dean said.

They stood in the parking lot with the other motel customers, watching firemen try to control the fire.

"You don't get it, Dean," Sam said. "It _was_ my fault."

" _You or her?"_

Him or Mary. That was the choice that Lucifer offered. He took Mary, but would trade her for Sam, if he asked.

And maybe it was more of a choice for Dean. Should Dean have him or her? His brother or his mother?

"Sam, don't be ridiculous. Yellow Eyes should be dead, why would we have a reason to suspect something like this would happen again? How could a demon even get in? We salted the door and windows."

It wasn't the work of a demon, but Sam didn't tell Dean that. Angels weren't stopped by salt lines, and Mary didn't have Enochian Sigils carved into her ribs to hide her from angels. She was more vulnerable than they originally thought, and Sam didn't realize it until too late.

Dean's hand on his shoulder kept him grounded, but Sam felt like poison. He was the reason people Dean loved kept dying.

Mary died over his crib, and again over his bed thirty-three years later.

John died because they were hit by a semi. Because Sam couldn't even get them to the hospital without getting in a car accident that should have killed Dean without demonic intervention.

Dean died to keep Sam alive. Sold his soul and went to Hell.

He really felt like Brother of the Year.

"Don't you want her back?" Sam asked. "We barely got any time with her."

"Of course, I want her back," Dean said, his voice thick with emotions he tried to keep hidden, "but I think we both know how deal making ends. She wasn't happy here. She's back with Dad."

"I can get her back for you, Dean," Sam said.

He wiped at his eyes and looked at Dean, removing the scorched motel from his sight.

" _I think it will be within the week."_

"Whatever you're thinking, Sam, it's a bad idea and the answer is 'no'," Dean said.

He looked more angry than sad, then. More worried than hurt.

"But she died because of _me_. Again!"

"I don't care," Dean snapped. "We kill what did it again. Let her rest in peace. We're out of favors, and we both know that what's dead is happier staying dead."

Sam was glad that they were off in the corner more. That anyone close enough to catch snippets of their conversation would probably write them off as unstable rather than pay too much mind to their ramblings about death and deals.

He wasn't convinced with Dean's solution. The simple we-kill-it approach. The reason that they were pulled into the hunting life in the first place.

They couldn't keep repeating their mistakes.

Sam still smelled burnt flesh.

Dean didn't need a brother like Sam, no matter how tightly he gripped his shoulder to try and push away Sam's unknown plan. Trying to push away Sam's guilt over something he didn't see as his fault.

" _You or her?"_

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam croaked out. "I'm so sorry."

Dean wrapped him in a bone-crushing hug and kept telling him every variation of 'Not your fault, Sammy' that he could come up with.

Only Dean didn't know _what,_ exactly, he was apologizing for.

Because Dean would never forgive him.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I have it in my head that they're going to off Mary by burning her over Sam's bed. Again. I doubt that the show will go that path, but hey, I'll write it out anyway with a bonus "Sam says 'yes' again" section.

Please leave a review, I'd appreciate it!


	2. Grief

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

The fire robbed them of a body to bury.

Mary already had a headstone, and it wasn't as accurate as it should be, but neither Sam nor Dean could figure out a way to adjust the dates that wouldn't be suspicious. To the normal public, people didn't come back to life. Death was final. Hell, one mention from a normal person about someone coming back to life is enough to get that person locked away in a loony bin.

But the Winchesters weren't part of the normal public, and resurrections were nothing new to them. Just the same way that death was nothing new to them. It was a vicious cycle, and no matter how used to it they were, it never stopped hurting.

Sam felt the unfairness of not having real closure. Of having his mom back for less than a year, and then losing her again in the same way they did the first time. Of not getting to really know Mary since she decided that she needed time to wrap her head around everything that changed in the thirty-three years she was gone.

Unfortunately for her, time was something Winchesters never seemed to get.

Dean never said it, but Sam knew that he shared those feelings.

But Dean didn't know that it was only temporary. He didn't know that Sam planned to set everything right again. That he planned to give back to Dean the family he deserved in place of the brother who had spent his life taking away from Dean's life, and never giving back.

He mistook Sam's guilt for grief, and Sam kept it that way.

Sam's fingers ghosted over Cas' name in his phone's contacts a dozen times before he pressed call.

A dozen calls went to voicemail before Sam gave up and left a message. And then another a few minutes later. And another.

"Cas, call me when you can," he said. "It's important. We need to talk… Just the two of us."

Dean would term it as suicidal, not important. An idiotic idea that Sam needed to be talked out of. Claim the grief had addled his mind and confused him. That he'd finally gone crazy after one loss too many.

Cas, he hoped, would understand. Cas, after all, had always seen the worth of Dean and the failures of Sam. Hadn't he first addressed Sam as 'the boy with the demon blood'? And he realized now that it was all he was ever supposed to be. His blood killed his mother and landed his family into the world of hunting that Mary tried so hard to pull them from.

Sam didn't realize he stood in the middle of the bunker's library, staring at the cell phone in his hand, until Dean's voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Sam? What are you doing?" he asked.

Sam slipped the phone back into his pocket. "I was just, uh, trying to get through to Cas. Guess he's not taking calls right now."

He meant to say it with a bit of humor and a small smile, but the smile fell flat and neither of them seemed to feel very humorous at the moment. The world slowly turned monochrome for them as the hits they kept taking added up, draining the color in any way possible. Humor. Happiness. Peace. All dyed grey.

"I'm going to get some supper," Dean said. "You want anything?"

Sam shrugged. "Not really."

Dean nodded, hesitated for a moment, then left. Sam suspected that he wasn't all that hungry either, but both of them were stuck in a loop of going through the motions and simply surviving from day to day.

If Sam were being honest with himself, it was the thought of sitting across from Dean while eating that drove away his appetite. He could take the overbearing scent of old books and must in the library, but the guilt of everything he took away from Dean throughout the years would drown him.

He fingered the business card that Mick insisted on giving them. Dealing with The Devil meant that he would need all the help he could get, especially if he wasn't getting help from Dean this time around.

* * *

He stared at the ceiling. Every time he closed his eyes, there was only fire above him and the shocked face of an already dead woman. Sometimes, it was his mother. More often, it was Jess.

When his eyes were open, his room was dark. He smelled the smoke of nonexistent flames and heard the voice in his head singing a chorus of 'this is your fault' to him.

It sounded like Lucifer.

No matter how bone-deep exhausted he was, he couldn't sleep in peace. His dreams were worse than his reality, which shouldn't have been possible considering how shitty his reality was in the first place.

" _Are you ready to answer me, Sam?" Lucifer asked._

 _He took the shape of Jess, just like he had during the Apocalypse, before Sam understood that his dream wasn't a normal dream and he had an archangel on his shoulder. His voice was just as honey-sweet as hers had been, but with the undertones of sadness that only an ancient creature could possess._

" _It's a good deal," Lucifer said. "Dean gets his mom back. The one thing that he's wanted his entire life, but never thought possible."_

" _I know," Sam grit out from between clenched teeth. "I just need more time. I need… I need to say goodbye."_

 _Lucifer-dressed-as-Jess sat on the edge of his bed. He reached out to place his hand on Sam's shoulder, but Sam shied away from it. "I know this is difficult for you, Sam," Lucifer said. "I loved my brother, too, more than anything. You remember how I tried so hard to teach him the ways of The Cage. I didn't want him to degrade into the thing he has. But I can't give you all of the time in the world."_

 _Hearing Jess' voice again reminded him of simpler times, when having a future of his own choosing almost seemed possible. The gentleness of Lucifer in his dream was the opposite of the Lucifer he spent nearly two centuries with in The Cage, but he was the serpent. He wanted to slither around and constrict his prey, which was much easier when that prey already wanted to die and was just asking for a little more time. All he needed to do was to soothe the lingering fears Sam had, convince him it was the right choice to trade himself for his mother, and they both knew it. For that, he became eerily gentle. Unsettlingly loving._

" _I know. Just a little more time."_

 _Lucifer sighed. "Alright," he said. "But if you hurry up and say 'yes' soon, I'll sweeten the deal and bring Dean his daddy back, too."_

" _You'd do that?"_

" _You were made just for me, Sam. My perfect vessel. I'll do what I need to if it means I get you."_

Sam couldn't fall back asleep after that, nor did he want to. He didn't want The Devil's false sympathy. He didn't want The Serpent to inject his venom in the form of beautiful promises: the life Dean deserved.

Lucifer's words left his skin crawling. Possession was something Sam was far too used to, and here he was preparing to face it again.

He glanced at his nightstand to find that his phone was not blinking with any notifications for new missed calls or messages.

He could keep staring at the ceiling. He could try to sleep again, though he knew what would be waiting for him, despite his body begging him for rest. He could shower to rinse off the cold sweat making the sheets of his bed cling to him uncomfortably.

In the end, he wasn't sure what the point of any of those options was. After he talked to Cas and set his plan up, what he had spent his days and nights doing in his free time would be less than trivial.

* * *

The next morning, he took one of the spare cars in the garage (not the Impala, he didn't deserve to drive it) into town and found a craft shop having a sale. He bought a few packs of charcoal sticks and spent the day in his room, scrawling angel warding on his walls.

He had no idea if the wards could keep out an archangel, but Sam wanted a good night's sleep just once or twice more before…

Well, was that too much to ask for?

Dean knocked softly on his open door. "Sam," he said. "You, uh, you okay?"

Sam finished the ward he was currently working on and faced Dean, who was looking around the room with a look that said he clearly thought Sam was going crazy.

"I just… yeah. I'm fine."

"Any particular reason for the new wall decorations?"

"I feel better with them up," Sam said. "I feel safer."

"You do realize that we're already in pretty much the safest place when it comes to the supernatural world, right?"

"Yeah, I know that."

Dean nodded a few times. "Okay, good," he said. He shifted his weight from foot to foot a few times before turning towards the door. "I'll just… be around if you need me or something."

"Yeah, thanks," Sam said.

Dean paused for another moment before he left.

* * *

It was Mick who returned his call before Cas did, even though he left more than a dozen voicemails on Cas' phone over the past few days and only one on Mick's.

"Sam," he said. "I'm glad that you decided to reach out to me. What do you need help with?"

"I have a plan to take down something big, but I'm missing a few of the details."

"You're going to have to be more specific than that, I'm afraid," Mick said.

"I want to get Lucifer back into his cage. Do you know of any ways to do that?"

"Lucifer? He's out of his cage again?"

"Look, Mick, Dean can explain all of that to you after we take care of him, but Dean can't be involved in this just yet. Do you have a way to put The Devil back in his box?"

"That's quite the request, Sam."

"Just something that can act like the Rings of the Four Horsemen and open a path to The Cage. That's all I need," he said.

"I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks, Mick. If you find anything, it'd be best if you prayed to Cas and told him about it instead of me."

"Any reason why?"

"Yeah," Sam said.

"And you aren't going to tell me that reason, I presume."

"Sorry, but no. Not now, at least."

"Fair enough. I'll get started, then. I don't want Lucifer roaming any longer than necessary."

Sam took a deep breath once the call ended, trying to settle the way it felt like his stomach was a small boat stranded in the rocky ocean waves of a storm and swallowing back the burning bile crawling up his throat. Still, he felt much better than he had the first two times he faced Lucifer. While he was, of course, nervous and more afraid than he would admit, the years had chipped away at him, piece-by-piece. He was tired. He was sick of ruining Dean's life. Of being the poison of his family.

This way, Dean could have the family he deserved. A mother and father and no little brother to be a nuisance.

It was all, he told himself, for the best.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The continuation that many have asked for has started!

Let me know what you think by leaving a review before you go!


	3. Frenemies

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

There wasn't much that Sam _wouldn't_ give to have Bobby back. To have his guidance. To hear how much of an idiot he is for his plan to defeat Lucifer again, which might be even dumber than the first time around.

But Bobby hadn't been there in years, and Sam really didn't feel like pushing his luck and asking Lucifer to bring him back, too. Having both of his parents resurrected for Dean was already more than he could ask for.

So, he didn't have Bobby's wealth of knowledge or worldly advice at his disposal this time around. He had to do what he's spent the past few years doing, working with what resources he _did_ have and resisting the urge to punch Bobby's number into his phone and hit dial. Instead, he had Mick, Cas, the Men of Letter's library, and his own knowledge to work with.

These days that didn't feel like enough.

Mick hadn't been hugely useful, but Sam could hardly blame him. Literature about caging The Devil was reasonably scarce. At most he could offer bits of spellwork that _might_ be beneficial to his plan and promises to keep searching.

While trying to fit together the pieces of the plan he had, Sam found himself in the grocery store, pushing a cart with a squeaky wheel through the aisles. As he walked through the most normal place he could, he thought of the place he was heading. A place of fear and pain and tortures that Toni could never have compared to. Not with her tools. Not with her potions or her spellwork. He'd take her little cold shower tactic over eternity with Lucifer in his own domain any day of the week.

Part of that plan meant herbs, and he really didn't want to go into any metaphysical shops if he could help it. The overbearing scent of incense would give him a headache and stick to him for days. He didn't need some part-time employee trying to peddle pretty pendants with crisply cut crystals dangling from them because they would align his chakras and protect him.

He knew about the power that simple objects could have over the supernatural, but he also knew that a person could not be protected from everything with those simple objects. Some things were inevitable.

Like Lucifer said, Sam would spend his life running towards him and away from his family.

But it was early and he still had some bits of family, so he tossed some bacon into the cart along with some eggs, more coffee grounds, and a pack of donuts. He wanted to make his final days with Dean count, even with something as insignificant as breakfast.

If he hurried, he would be on track for breakfast at nine, then bleeding into a bowl over dried herbs by ten.

Because who else would be an ally against Lucifer like Crowley? The enemy of his enemy was supposed to be his friend, so he'd have to hope that the saying had some truth to it.

The cashier had a plastic smile on her face as she checked him out, clearly not wanting to be there anymore than he did. Maybe he tried being normal at Stanford and with Jess. He made grocery runs and pretended that the things in the shadows stayed there. But not anymore. It was time to accept the truth he knew about the world and his role as a dead man walking.

* * *

Sam set the table for two people, though the plates in the middle held enough food to be split amongst a family. Bacon and eggs were a classic, and some of Dean's favorite breakfast foods, but he wouldn't say no to coffee and donuts either.

He'd made better time than he thought, and Dean didn't wander into the kitchen until he smelled the freshly brewing coffee, food already done.

Dean sat across from him at the table, eating plenty, but eating slowly. He kept glancing at Sam, and Sam tried to keep his head down, as if it would hide him from Dean.

He heard the clink of a fork being set against the plate and Dean sighed.

"Sam," Dean said. "Is this because of Mom? You know I don't blame you for that, right?"

Sam shook his head. "It's not because of Mom."

"Then, what is it, Sam? You've barely talked since it happened. Just the other day, I found you in your room drawing angel warding all over the fucking walls. Today, you're making breakfast and not even trying to include health junk. Ever since Mom, you haven't been the same. What else am I supposed to think?"

Sam looked up at Dean, seeing the hunch of his back and the way he seemed to be on the verge of tearing out his hair, looking desperately at Sam for an answer that Sam wasn't sure he had.

"It's just… realizing how quickly you can lose something makes you want to hold onto what you still have," Sam said.

The tension washed out of Dean and his frustration melted into sorrow and understanding. He picked his fork back up and refilled his plate. "I get it, Sammy," he said. "I do, but don't you think that I'd rather you take better care of yourself instead of trying to take care of me? You're barely sleeping and you're barely eating. I can see how exhausted you are, man. But you were having trouble sleeping even before Mom, so are you sure that this is all just grief?"

"No," Sam said.

"What else is it?" Dean asked. He used a tone that Sam hadn't heard in years, not since he was a child. Not since before the demon deals and blood drinking, because no matter how much neither of them wanted to admit it, their relationship never fully recovered from everything that happened in those years.

He imagined John sitting in his place, with Mary in the chair beside him, smiling and enjoying breakfast as a family. Even Dean on the other side would be smiling and laughing along with them, no more crushing weights sitting on his shoulders.

They would be happy. They would be as normal as a family of hunters could be.

Just as soon as Sam was out of the picture.

"I don't know," Sam said, enough hesitance in his voice to sound sincere. It wasn't a direct lie, but he was omitting the entire truth. "Everything, I guess. Too many things."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Not really."

They spent the rest of breakfast pushing food around their plates instead of eating. Sam made a note to himself to figure out something to do for dinner. If he was counting down the days he had left, then he wanted to make them count.

Maybe he could leave behind some good memories for Dean, at the very least.

* * *

"Moose, but no squirrel," Crowley said. He looked up at the Devil's Trap scrawled on the ceiling above him, then back at Sam. "I thought we were close enough to not resort to caging each other."

Sam doesn't laugh. "Oddly enough, that's exactly what I need your help with."

"You're serious."

"I'm serious."

Crowley rolled his eyes, mumbling 'Winchesters' under his breath. "Well, you're going to need to elaborate a bit."

"Lucifer," Sam said. "You want him gone. I want him gone. I want to get him in The Cage again, but we don't have the rings anymore, so we need another way to open The Cage and close it back up once he's in it."

"You're insane."

"I'm desperate," Sam said. "And I know you're desperate, too. And I know that he wants me as his vessel again. I know that I can throw him back into his cage, I just need a little help and for Dean to _not_ know."

Not all of it was the truth. Sam didn't know if he could overpower Lucifer again. Last time, it had been Dean's unwavering loyalty (and, though he wouldn't admit it, love) that helped him regain control over himself. This time, he didn't want Dean anywhere near them when he said 'yes'.

Crowley appraised Sam, looking for his seriousness, no doubt, and Sam knew that seriousness was all he really had left. "All right, I'm in," he said. "To be honest, you're saving me a lot of headache here. Figuring out how to get Lucifer in The Cage while in his vessel, and knowing who his vessel is, will make things a lot easier. Are you sure about not telling big brother, though?"

"Yes," Sam said. "Dean wouldn't understand that I'm doing this for him. He would try and stop it, and then neither one of us gets what we want."

Sam broke the Devil's Trap, and Crowley disappeared. His phone alerted him to a new message, and all it said was 'We'll be in touch'.

* * *

Dean had taken to hovering around him, but Sam figured he shouldn't have been surprised. He knew that he was acting weird, even by their standards (especially by their standards), and he wasn't talking to Dean about it. So, Dean did what he always did. He watched Sam and tried to figure him out, like a puzzle that he was missing pieces for.

"You want to go out or something? We haven't really checked out the bars near here."

"We agreed not to so that people wouldn't know us as regulars, remember? Just in case other hunters or any of the many creatures that hate us come through looking for us. Protecting the home base and all that," Sam said.

"Who cares? Like we can't take on some hunters or fuglies. We've been doing it our whole lives."

Sam shrugged, and Dean herded him into the Impala and to a bar not far away. There were plenty of people, but the bar was large enough that it didn't feel crowded.

"You want something to drink?" Dean asked, shoving Sam into a seat at a table in the corner, but close to the pool tables.

Sam shrugged.

Dean looked almost disappointed with that answer, but he hid it well (like he always did) and got a drink for himself and Sam. Sam watched from their table. He expected Dean to flirt with the bartender, a little blonde thing with a heavy hand when it came to applying her make-up. She was the kind of girl that Dean would have swooned in the old days with a smile and some sweet words.

And Dean did smile at her. And he did talk, but Sam couldn't hear the words he said, not with the background noise of the bar filling the air. Then, he came back to the table without a paper with her number written on it or the swagger in his step that meant he was about to ditch Sam in favor of a night spent between sheets.

He put a drink in front of Sam that Sam had no intention of drinking.

"Didn't even try to get her number?" Sam asked.

"Who?"

"The bartender."

Dean glanced over at her again as he settled in his seat. "Why would I?"

"Why _wouldn't_ you?"

Dean looked at him like he'd grown another head, then folded his hands on the table and cleared his throat. "Maybe because I'm here to spend time with my little brother, who I'm worried might be losing it."

"Dean…"

"No, Sammy. Look, you said that it wasn't only grief driving you. You told me that you were trying to hold onto what you still have because you realized how easy it is to lose those things. Well, you're right in front of me, Sam, but I'm still losing you right before my eyes. You're drawing angel warding on walls in what's supposed to be a stronghold against the supernatural. You spend hours in the library, and sometimes you spend hours just staring at your phone. You won't talk to me."

He repeated it again, softer. "You won't talk to me."

"I don't know what to say," Sam said.

"Tell me what's going on in that head of yours, Sam."

Sam fell silent, and with each moment that passed without him speaking, Dean looked a little more wounded.

He would be happy, though. Soon enough.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Dean is trying, at least, to get through to Sam.

I'm glad to see that you guys are happy for the continuation. I would be very happy to see some reviews!


	4. One More Night

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Sam checked the angel warding in his room. Then, he checked it again. He felt Lucifer at the edges of his consciousness, trying to get in but unable to. The Serpent was trying to slither into his head, and he understood why _he_ was made to be the perfect vessel for Lucifer. It was his symbol as a snake, injecting venom into others. Killing them. He checked the warding a third time and thought about putting them up in Dean's room, too. Just to be safe.

Especially since it seemed like Dean wasn't sleeping well anymore. Were the angels bothering his dreams, too? Was it like the Apocalypse all over again and Michael escaped The Cage wanting to use Dean as his vessel? Was Sam's swan dive only meant to delay the inevitable fiery death of the world?

Sam forced himself to take a deep breath, inhaling the frankincense that he'd taken to continuously burning in his room. Strength and protection, that's what he read. Purification. Things that he needed, but didn't feel like he was receiving. Dean was just exhausted from all the shit happening to them. It wasn't the angels bothering him, it was everything else.

The scent was calming, at least. It reminded him of days spent in Pastor Jim's church, when it still felt like there was enough light in the world to fight off the darkness.

He wished that he had asked Chuck why he had been allowed to set foot on holy ground throughout his life while he had evil in his veins, but they all had bigger problems to deal with at the time.

He took another deep breath. If he started drawing wards all over Dean's room, then there was no way that Dean's suspicion wouldn't skyrocket. Sam wouldn't put it past Dean to lock him down in their demon prison room until he got answers.

He wished Cas would call him back. He wished that they could get this all over with so that Sam could be back where he belonged and Dean could move on with his life, finally free from the burden of Sam.

It'd already been longer than the week that Lucifer predicted, but Lucifer was nothing if not patient when he knew that he was on the verge of getting what he wanted. Though, Sam still felt his presence at the edge of his consciousness, trying to lure him into hurrying. Just say 'yes' already, it said. What's the use in delaying?

When his phone vibrated and the screen lit up, he stopped breathing for a second, his heart lodged in his throat as a thousand second thoughts ran through his head and made him reconsider it all in a single moment. But the name on the text message was Crowley's, not Cas'.

It was a short message, just letting Sam know that Crowley figured out a way to manipulate The Cage without the key. Sam replied that he should tell Cas about it, as Sam feared his mind was not entirely safe from Lucifer's prying. Not yet.

And his entire plan revolved around Lucifer and Dean staying out of the loop.

* * *

"You're scaring me, Sam," Dean said. "Ever since Mom died again."

Eating together in their kitchen had become a regular occurrence since Sam's deal with The Devil. It almost felt like they were a normal, small family. The first few times, Dean questioned it. But now it was a habit for both of them, and a time that Dean used to try and find out what Sam was up to.

Sam wouldn't let that happen.

"I told you already," Sam said. "Losing someone like that makes you want to appreciate what you still have left."

"Well, the last times you were this quiet never ended with anything good. You spend your entire life wanting to talk things through, and now that I'm offering, you're more tight-lipped than ever."

"I don't know what to tell you," Sam said.

"The truth would be nice, because I'm not buying that this is all out of losing Mom. We've lost her before, and it hurts, but we've made it through those losses."

It felt like they were warped back to the first time that Lucifer walked the Earth. They were thrown back to the days of distrust and being manipulated against each other. Days when Sam wanted nothing more than to have stayed dead in Cold Oak because that would have been the best for everyone.

That was the one thing that was abundantly clear throughout the years after Stanford: everyone was better off when he wasn't in the picture.

"Sam?" Dean asked.

Sam jerked his focus from his food (mostly uneaten) to Dean. "What?"

"Dude, now you're spacing out on me? I've been trying to get your attention for a solid five minutes while you stared at your food like it insulted your hair."

"Sorry," Sam said.

Dean ran a hand down his face and shook his head. "I can't help you if you don't give me anything to work with, Sam."

"Dean…"

"Sam. Sammy, I'm begging you, man. Talk to me. What's with the angel wards and the lack of sleep and the bouts of clinginess?"

"I took your gift away, Dean."

"What?"

"Mom, I took her away from you again," he said. He wanted Dean to be able to understand all the things he wasn't saying. That he shouldn't be helping someone who ruined his life so thoroughly.

"Sam, that wasn't you. You didn't do anything. We'll figure out what did it and hunt the bastard down just like we did the first time around, okay? You don't have to punish yourself like this. I don't blame you," Dean said. " _I don't blame you._ Not this time, not the first time."

"You should," Sam said. "You should. It's always been my fault."

Dean took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. "How about we go stock up on junk food and beer and spend the night catching up on Netflix?" Dean asked. "Just like old times."

Sam nodded. One last movie night with his brother sounded pretty good, because he wasn't sure that there would be another chance. He felt his time slipping through his fingers. Once Cas finally contacted him, it would be gone.

* * *

Sam's phone rang early in the morning, before sunrise and only an hour or so after he and Dean ended their marathon of B-rated movies and horrible dramas. He answered, voice thick with sleep and words a groggy slur.

"Sam, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. Heaven has poor reception for cellular devices."

"Cas, can you come to the bunker? I'll meet you outside, just make sure that you don't wake up Dean."

"Sam, I—"

"It's important," Sam said, cutting him off. "Believe me, it's really, really important. Please."

"I'll be there shortly."

The call ended, and Sam threw on a sweatshirt to keep away the night chill. He walked with silent steps through the bunker, anticipation buzzing through his veins at the realization that he could set everything into motion soon. That thought alone was enough to fill him with mixed emotions. Fear, he knew that The Cage was far from pleasant and his first stay had severely damaged his soul. Relief, Dean would have a family that never got the people he loved killed. Dean would be free of the responsibility of taking are of him. Anxiety, he just wanted it over with now. Before he had the chance to change his mind.

The door to the bunker wasn't quiet when opened or closed, but Sam did his best to make as little sound as possible. He did not need Dean waking up, not now.

"Hello, Sam," Cas said, already standing on the other side. Waiting.

"You weren't kidding about being here shortly."

"No, I was not."

Sam tried to find the words, but they stumbled out of his mouth before he could think of how to phrase them in a non-shocking way. "Lucifer is still walking around Earth, and he wants me to say 'yes' again."

"No, that can't be. Lucifer is in his cage in Hell."

"He's not. He spent weeks invading my dreams and trying to convince me to be his vessel. He killed our mom and offered to bring her back if I agreed. He even offered to bring our dad back, too. For Dean."

"Dean would not want you to agree to that."

"Well, this isn't about what Dean wants," Sam said. "This is about what's best for him, and what's best for him is to have the family that he's always wanted. What's best for him is to be rid of his little brother who can't do a damn thing right. I'm going to take Lucifer back where he belongs, and I'm going to send myself back where I belong."

"Sam, you should really talk to Dean about this. You know how much it hurt him the first time you jumped into Hell."

"Cas, you know that dealing with Lucifer is more important than anything else right now. Promise me that you'll help me handle it, and once it's done, you can tell Dean all of it. You make sure that our parents find their way here, to him, and you can tell him the whole story. Until then, please, just keep it between us."

Sam hated the tone of his own voice, the pleading in it. The desperation.

"We don't have the key anymore, how are you going to open The Cage?" Cas asked, monotonous as ever now that his protests stopped.

"Crowley has a way. You'll have to talk to him about it," Sam said.

"Then, what exactly do you need from me?"

"Work with Crowley and make sure that I end up in The Cage with Lucifer after I say 'yes'. Don't rely on me being able to overpower him this time, I think that was just a fluke," Sam said. He laughed a bit at the end, but there was no humor in it. "Make sure our parents meet up with Dean. And erase my memories of the plan. Only let me remember that Lucifer offered me my parents in exchange for being his vessel."

Cas paused for a long time. "Are you sure you don't want to talk to Dean first? There has to be a way to deal with Lucifer that doesn't involve casting yourself into Hell again."

"Even if there's another way—which we don't know if there is—how much damage will Lucifer do to the world before then? I know that you've always been more of Dean's friend than mine, but I just need you to be my friend for a couple of days."

"I've always been your friend, Sam."

Sam smiled at that, but shook his head. "Maybe, but there's always been something holding you back. Like you've never fully trusted me. I was always just the boy with the demon blood to you."

"This is really what you want?"

"It is. It really is, Cas."

"When are you planning to say 'yes'?"

"How long will it take you and Crowley to put together a trap?"

"Since Crowley figured out how to use The Cage without a key and if we get Rowena to agree and use her magic, not long. One day should be sufficient."

"Okay," Sam said. "Okay. Let's do it."

Cas touched two of his fingers to Sam's forehead with a quiet apology.

* * *

Sam woke up to knocking on his door.

"Sam? You up?"

It was Dean on the other side. He sounded calm enough, and Sam sat up, trying to figure out why Dean would knock instead of barging into the room as he usually would. When had Dean given him boundaries and respected them?

"I am now," he said, loud enough to reach through the thick, wooden door.

Dean opened the door and leaned against its frame. "I saw Cas this morning. Weren't you trying to get through to him awhile back?"

"Was I? Must have not been for anything important if I can't remember," Sam said, thinking back and finding only blank spots when he tried to figure out why he wanted to speak with Cas. "At least, we know he's doing alright. Did he say what he's been up to?"

"Not really. Just something about seeking knowledge and guidance in Heaven. Sounded like back when I first met him and he was just another dick with wings."

"Huh."

"You doing okay?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"I don't know," Dean said. "Something just seems different today. Maybe I'm just imagining things. Get cleaned up, I'll whip up something for breakfast."

Dean turned to leave, but stopped at looked at Sam for another minute. He shook his head and closed the door behind him.

Sam took a deep breath and sat still for awhile. He knew beyond doubt that it would be his last day on Earth, that he would finally be taking up Lucifer's offer tomorrow morning, even if he didn't completely remember coming to that conclusion.

The knowledge, despite also knowing his destination, left him feeling almost at peace.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** There aren't many chapter left because this was never intended to be a long story. I was going to be mean and say that I'll base the ending on the number of reviews the chapters before it receive, but I think I've decided on the ending I want to use.

Please review, it means more than you can imagine to a writer!


	5. Greetings and Goodbyes

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Sam woke with the sunrise. His last day on Earth had been spent with Dean, and really that was the most he could ask for. They hadn't done anything special, they never needed to, but the time for delaying was over. He needed to finally accept the destination that was his all along and accept Lucifer's offer. John and Mary in exchange for himself. When he thought about it, he wasn't sure that he could get a better deal for Dean.

He sat at his desk, hand cramping as it wrote out one final letter to Dean, telling him everything that he wouldn't get the chance to tell him in person. One page turned into two, and he ended up with a small stack of handwritten papers on his desk. It would never be enough closure for Dean, he knew that, but he hoped that it would ease the loss and help Dean accept his new life with their parents. A life where they could all do the things they couldn't before. The kind of life that Sam always wanted for Dean. One he tried to have for himself a few times, but never managed to hold onto for long.

Dean _had_ always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. They could make a family vacation out of it. Actually be tourists for once and not hunters.

He finished his last minute arrangements and left, with hours remaining before Dean usually woke up. He had a good head start. Enough that he would be well and truly gone by the time Dean realized anything was wrong.

He took a last look around his room. It was the first time that both he and Dean had the chance to have a home together, even if they had temporary homes before. Sam at Stanford with Jess and Dean with Lisa. Jess decorated their apartment, but Sam never bothered to add personal touches to his room in the bunker. He always put it off as something to do later.

Only, now there was no later. It'd forever be a bland room, no hints as to which kind of person once occupied it.

He closed the door behind him, softly and silently with a note of finality. Since it was the last time he would see them, he paid attention to the hallways, trying to memorize the little details he overlooked every other time he passed them.

He took a car from the garage, but not the Impala. He could never to that to Dean. With the key in the ignition and the engine rumbling, he set off to get away from the bunker. No need to let Lucifer be that close to Dean.

But every mile that he drove made his heart sink more and more. He wondered if he should just turn around and be selfish. He didn't think that he asked for much, and all he really wanted was to be with his brother and not in Hell.

His tight grip on the wheel left his knuckles white. This was for _Dean_. What he wanted for himself didn't matter.

He could do this. For Dean. And for John and Mary.

He drove to a field, wide and as flat as the rest of Kansas. The grass was tall enough to sway in the mid-morning wind. The air smelled pure, vastly different from the scent of sulfur that would be filling his lungs for the rest of eternity soon, granted that he somehow managed to best The Devil once more. Still, he had a pretty good feeling about all of this, that he knew Lucifer wouldn't be a problem that Dean would have to handle.

He took a deep breath, feeling Lucifer at the edges of his mind.

" _You'll bring my mom and dad back before you do anything else?"_

" _You have my word, Sam,"_ he said. His voice, when not in a vessel, sounded like Jess'. Sweet and warm and a reminder of the innocents he spent so much of his life trying to save. A voice that he never forgot, no matter how many years passed. Jess was his favorite disguise when he contacted Sam without a vessel. When he wanted to lure Sam into something.

Because no matter how many years passed, he still loved her.

The one thing about Lucifer was that he never lied. He was always straightforward about his intentions when asked, at least to Sam.

" _I want to see them. Just for a second to make sure."_

" _That might just make it harder on you,"_ Lucifer warned.

" _It's something I need. Please."_

" _Okay,"_ Lucifer said. _"For a moment, to see that they're alive and well."_

" _Then, yes."_

The first time he was possessed by Lucifer, it felt invasive and angry. Sam was angry at the world and all the demons and angels inhabiting it (and himself for kicking off the Apocalypse and trusting a demon in the first place). Lucifer was angry at his Father and at Michael, who cast him into Hell for millennia. It was a clash of hatred and a battle of wills.

This time, it was warm. More like water washing over him on a beach than raging waves pulling him beneath the surface. It was what the merging of an angel and their true vessel was supposed to be.

He stood in the same field, but he saw it through eyes no longer his own. He was just a spectator. The field blurred, and he felt a surge of power that could only belong to Lucifer. When his vision cleared, John and Mary stood in the field, looking confused and disoriented. But Sam knew what it was like to come back from the dead. How it felt like being thrown into a foreign land where nothing has changed, but everything feels different.

John's mouth opened, but Sam couldn't hear any words that came out.

Sam swore he saw Cas appear in front of him, and his memories came flooding back. He asked Cas to do this. Together, they would throw Lucifer back into his cage, even if that meant that Sam went, too.

His body felt like his own again, the same feeling he felt when he took back control in Stull Cemetery to keep Dean from being killed. Lucifer raged against him, but seeing his parents alive and well gave him the strength the hold The Devil down. He wouldn't let Lucifer kill them after bringing them back because their deal hadn't specified anything beyond their resurrections. He wouldn't let them die at his hands like Bobby and Cas had the first time Lucifer possessed him.

"Sam?"

"I've got him," Sam said. "But not for long. Hurry."

Cas' hand landed on his shoulder and the world spun. The field turned into the unfinished, rundown basement of what had to be an old house. Cracks in the walls let moisture seep through that made the air humid and the few pieces of furniture reek of mildew.

He was shoved forward into a large symbol drawn in blood on the floor that he didn't recognize. He landed on his hands and knees, and Crowley wasted no time in shackling his hands with chains covered in spellwork.

Rowena stood to the side with an elaborate altar in front of her, half the items on it were things Sam didn't recognize. Any other time, he would have wondered what kind of ancient magic she dug into for this plan, but he needed to use all of his strength to hold back Lucifer for just a minute more.

Only, he was on the verge of losing.

Cas said, "Sam, it wasn't a fluke the first time. It was your own strength."

Sam shook his head. "I can't… He's… Hurry."

Rowena started a chant, but the last thing that Sam heard was Cas saying, "Thank you, Sam. For everything."

Then, Lucifer was separated from him and beyond angry. And there was fire and pain. His head lolled to the side, and he saw the familiar bars of The Cage.

* * *

Mary stared at the spot where her son stood not a minute earlier. There was something in his expression that left her uneasy. Something inhuman.

She burned and woke up in a field with Dean. This time, she burned and woke up in a field with Sam and John, who looked so much older and worn down than she remembered.

John reached out toward her, but didn't touch her. "Mary?" he asked, his voice a breathless whisper almost lost in the gentle breeze. "How are you here?"

She never knew John as someone to be brought to tears easily, but they slid down his face, illuminated by the morning sun. She felt the tears running down her own face. Seeing Sam and Dean as adults had been a jarring experience after spending decades in Heaven with them as children eternally. But being alive with John again, well, she felt whole.

He wrapped her in strong arms, and she buried her face in his shoulder. For a moment, the world around them ceased to exist. There was just the connection and the knowledge that they were true soulmates, the feeling that no shapeshifter or demon could mimic.

But their world had to start spinning again at some point, and she pulled away from John. "That was Sam," she said.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, there's a lot I need to explain to you, but first we need to find Dean and figure out what's going on. I just need you to trust me for now."

She led him to the car parked near the field, driver's door open and keys in the ignition, hoping that she could remember the directions to the bunker.

John sat in the passenger seat. "You have no idea how much I missed you for all these years," he said.

Mary laughed a bit. "We were together in Heaven."

"You know that's not the same. That Sam and Dean… they weren't the real Sam and Dean."

"Let's hope that the real Sam and Dean haven't gotten themselves into trouble while we were gone."

She sped as much as she dared to without having to fear being pulled over, but she couldn't deny the foreboding feeling in her gut. The same feeling she had the night she walked into Sam's nursery and burned.

* * *

Dean woke up to a bunker that did not have the freshly brewed coffee scent he'd become accustomed to smelling first thing in the morning (possibly along with bacon and eggs). He padded through the hallways barefoot, the sound of his footsteps echoing was the only sound he heard. Until he heard knocking at the main door.

He grabbed a gun from its place hidden under one of the tables, and went to the door. "Who's there?"

"Dean, it's me, Mary! Your mother."

Dean opened the door and kept his gun trained on Mary, and on John standing beside her, the last two people he ever expected to see at his doorstep.

"Mom? Dad?" he asked. Though he knew it was possible, he couldn't think of anyone who would bring both of his parents back to life.

"Dean, Sam just vanished from the field where we came to," Mary said. "Is he here?"

All the actions and words of Sam over the past two weeks came crashing over him, spelling out his plan so clearly that Dean felt like an absolute idiot for not realizing it earlier. He put his gun down and ran to Sam's room, ignoring the thunderous steps of his parents as they rushed after him.

He slammed Sam's door open to find an empty room, hearing Sam's apologies and excuses for his sullenness replaying in his mind. Just appreciating what he still had. Bullshit. He was saying a silent goodbye.

"Shit. Shit. Shit," Dean said. "What the fuck did you do, Sam?"

He turned to look at his parents. "What the fuck did he do?"

He was glad that his parents were hunters. That they could put aside a reunion for the sake of figuring out where their missing family member was. He loved his parents, he really did. He couldn't wait to get to know them. But with Sam missing, their resurrection took a backseat, especially since he was pretty sure that Sam's disappearance and their reappearance was related.

"Isn't that your amulet, Dean?" John asked.

Dean followed John's line of sight to Sam's pillow, where a stack of papers sat with the ugly bronze charm of his amulet right in the middle of it. The last time John saw him, he still wore it religiously.

The thought reiterated just how long it's been since he last saw his father. How much had changed since then.

He swept his eyes over the stack of papers, but didn't have the time to read through them thoroughly. All he knew was that the lines he skimmed over sounded an awful lot like a suicide note, and he was far too late to stop whatever plan Sam concocted.

"Dean…"

Dean spun around to face Cas. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John push Mary behind him, like Cas was a threat. He didn't have the time to explain to his father that Mary had been right all along and angels _were_ watching over them, just not for the best reasons.

"Stay away from my family," John said. "What the hell are you?"

"He's a friend, Dad," he grit out from between clenched teeth. He was angry at everything and everyone, but mostly himself for not realizing that Sam spent nearly two weeks acting the same way he always did when he had self-sacrificial bullshit filling his head. "Now, what the fuck did Sam do? Where is he?"

"Dean… I'm so sorry."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The Winchester family is in for an unpleasant surprise, and Dean already is more upset with Sam being gone than he is happy with his parents being back.

Leave a review to save Sam from Hell! Just kidding. Sort of. Maybe.


	6. The Letter

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

 _"This is the part where I realize how much I still have left to say to you, but will never have the chance to tell you."_

"Dean?" There were knocks on the door. "Dean, we need to talk."

Dean didn't bother telling his dad to go away. He didn't bother saying anything at all, just remained locked away in his brother's room with a stack of papers covered in his brother's handwriting and addressed to him.

"Dean, please." This time it was his mom. "Don't lock yourself away like this. It's been days."

" _You're sorry for what, Cas?" Dean asked._

" _It was what Sam asked of me. It was what he wanted," Cas said. "I begged him to reconsider and talk to you first, but he had already decided that he would be the one to put Lucifer in his cage once again."_

" _What?"_

" _I'm sorry, Dean, but Sam is with Lucifer. In The Cage."_

The amulet around his neck felt heavier than ever. It used to mean so much, but he threw it away because he knew it would hurt Sam. He wanted Sam to see him do it. He _wanted_ it to hurt. And then they never talked about it again, not even when Sam was dying because of Amara's fog and Dean found it glowing in his pocket.

He should have apologized for throwing it away when he had the chance.

" _I'm sure there's a lot that you want to say to me, too. I'll save you the time and tell you that I think I know the basics, and I know that you'll never understand that I did this for you."_

Dean almost laughed at that. Sam sure as hell didn't know all the things Dean wanted to say to him. If he had listened to Cas and reconsidered his plan, if he had talked to Dean first, Dean would have made him understand that none of this was worth it. Why couldn't Sam understand that _he_ was at the top of Dean's priorities, beneath both of their parents and everyone else in the shitty world where he's always left behind?

* * *

" _Lucifer has been haunting my dreams for weeks. We thought that maybe Amara cast him back into The Cage when she expelled him from Cas, but we were wrong. He stuck around on Earth, trying to persuade me into being his vessel again. Just like the first time, I decided to say 'yes' again. If only so that it would be a problem that you wouldn't have to deal with._

" _I'm not asking you to understand my reasoning on that part, and having been in The Cage before, I can't fully understand my reasoning either. I just want you to know that I'm asking you, like the first time, not to poke at The Cage. Enjoy a second chance with Mom and Dad. Enjoy it for me, because I won't be able to."_

Dean came out of Sam's room for dinner three days after John and Mary were resurrected and Cas told him the truth of what happened to his brother. Neither John nor Mary were great cooks, but Mary managed to make a simple meal by following recipes written on the backs of boxes. Not that it mattered what she made, Dean didn't taste it. He couldn't taste it.

"Do you care to explain more of what that inhuman man meant when he said Sam was in a cage?" John asked.

"Not 'a cage,'" Dean said. " _The_ Cage. Sam is in Hell. In Lucifer's Cage. With Lucifer."

Mary coughed and washed down the food stuck in her throat. " _Lucifer's Cage_?" she asked. "That's not real. It can't be."

"Believe me, it's real," Dean said. "You met Cas before, Mom. If angels exist, why not archangels? Why not Lucifer and Michael? Gabriel and Raphael? I've met every single one of them."

Both of his parents stopped eating. John had the same expression on his face as when Sam walked out the door and went on his way to Stanford. Mary had a blank look, like she just shut down or couldn't figure out what to feel. Not that Dean could blame her. Learning that her child was literally in Hell had to be tough to process.

"You were right, Mom," Dean said. "Angels were watching over us. They were always watching over us, because they wanted to use me and Sam to end the world."

"What about the demon army?" John asked.

"Well, you were a little wrong about that one. Yellow Eyes didn't want a leader, not like that. He wanted to find Lucifer's true vessel."

"And Sam?"

"Sam was the true vessel," Dean said. "That's why… That's why he's in Hell right now. He beat The Devil. Put him back in his cage."

"I told you to watch out for your brother, Dean," John said. "Do you know what Hell is like?"

Dean stood up, the abruptness of his movement making his chair fall backwards. "Yeah, Dad. I do. Because I sold my soul to save Sam and spent four months in Hell. And I know that you've always told me to look out for him, but he's a grown man and you know that he's damn clever. You _know_ he'll always find a way to do exactly what he wants to."

"Maybe," John said, "it would have been more merciful to leave him dead."

Dean clenched his hands into fists. "What? If it had been him dying after that car crash instead of me, you wouldn't have sold your soul?"

"No," John said, "I wouldn't have. I knew that the demons had plans for him. If death could keep him away from them, then I would've let him die."

Out of everything, that was the last thing he thought would come out of his father's mouth. And it was the one thing that made Dean's anger flare up in a fraction of a second: disregard for Sam's life. "He was your son, too! The way you always had me watching him. How you never let him have the freedom he craved. Did you ever love him at all? Or were you just waiting for him to fulfill some bullshit prophecy? Were you keeping him on a tight leash just so that you could put him down when the time came? Because you were wrong if you thought he couldn't handle it. He's beaten Lucifer twice now, and he's more of a man than you ever were."

Dean swiped his plate to the side and let it fall to the ground and shatter. He stalked back to Sam's room, hating to admit that Sam had been right throughout all the years that he said that Dad looked at him differently. That he didn't love him as much as he loved Dean.

Dean tried to deny it every time that Sam mentioned it, but hearing that John would have just let Sam die was hard. John told him to save Sam, but Dean was willing to go farther to save him than John ever would have. He thought that he always wanted his dad alive again, but the reunion wasn't as great as he expected.

He would rather have Sam back with him.

Dean filled a bucket with soap and water and scrubbed away every trace of angel warding in Sam's room.

* * *

" _I should say 'thank you' for a lot of things. I know that it couldn't have been easy to give up your own childhood for the sake of giving me one. I know that I never appreciated everything you've done for me, and, sometimes, I even threw the things you've done for me back into your face like they were meaningless. I hope that, now, you'll be able to regain some of the pieces of childhood that I stole from you."_

Summoning demons was second nature to Dean, and he wasn't about to just call Crowley. No, he needed to make sure the bastard wouldn't be able to slip away from him. He drew a Devil's Trap, and he had the demon handcuffs on-hand in case he needed them. He wasn't taking risks.

"Well," Crowley said, appearing at the center of the trap, "I can't say I'm surprised to see you. What, are you going to try selling your soul for Sam again?"

"Could I?" Dean asked. It was something he hadn't tried with Sam in The Cage. He didn't think that any demon had enough power to bust a human soul out of there. "My soul in Hell in exchange for Sam's soul being out of Hell."

"What? No! Never. Look, you want Sam back. I know that. Every supernatural creature knows how unhealthily codependent you two are on each other. But I'm not taking any chance that comes with messing with The Cage. One screw up, and Lucifer runs free. That puts us right back at square one, and I doubt that you want your brother's sacrifice to be in vain."

"There has to be a way," Dean said. "There has to be something we can do to bust him out."

"Look, Dean, we aren't friends. In fact, most of the time, I can hardly stand you," he said. "My answer will always be the same. I'm not helping you bust Sam out, because I need Lucifer kept in."

"Maybe I'll keep you there until you change your mind," Dean said.

"You don't think that other demons will come looking for me?" Crowley asked. "Do you really want to risk luring demons to your freshly resurrected parents just because you want to try and persuade me to help you do something crazy, which I just stated that I will never help with?"

Dean used Ruby's knife to break the Devil's Trap, but Crowley vanished before he had the chance to go through with the sudden urge to shove it into his heart.

* * *

" _You're probably thinking that I'm an idiot. Hell, I thought that I was an idiot for even considering this. But I have a good feeling that it'll work out. I really think that there's a way to get Lucifer back in his cage. I can't explain how I know, but I do. Is it really idiotic to risk yourself if it means saving your family? Could you honestly tell me that you wouldn't do the exact same thing if you had the chance? If you were the one destined for Lucifer instead of Michael?"_

"Dean, it's me, your mother. Please, let me in."

She knocked a few more times before Dean got up and let her in. He'd been burning the frankincense that Sam left in his room, hoping that it might burn everything to the ground. All he succeeded in doing was making the room smell like a church.

"Dean, about what your father said. He does love Sam. He always has," she said. "I talked to him about it, and he said that sometimes you have to consider drastic options _because_ you love someone."

"Do you know what Dad's last words to me were?" Dean asked.

Mary shook her head.

"He told me that I had to save Sam, and that if I couldn't save him, I had to kill him," Dean said. "Do you know how much that fucked up my relationship with Sammy? I couldn't look at him the same, because I always thought that I would see someone else where he was supposed to be. And you know what the worst part was? I couldn't save him in the end. He still ran straight into the destiny that Heaven and Hell prepared for him. He was the one who saved everyone else by screwing over their plans at the end."

"Dean, maybe you should talk to your father about it. Maybe you should hear his side of the story."

"What story? The story of our royally fucked up lives? I used to look up to him, but I can't anymore. When I look in the mirror, I hate what I see staring back. And all I see staring back is the same shell of a man that Dad was after you died. A man fueled by alcohol and the never-ending job of killing things that aren't human."

"Sam was our child, not just your brother. Don't you think that we're hurting, too, knowing where he is?" she asked. She tried moving closer to Dean, tried to touch his shoulder, but he moved away from her.

"He wasn't your child," Dean said. "I had to be his mother _and_ his father. If he's anyone's son, he's mine."

"Dean…"

"Please, leave. If you two are okay with letting Sam rot in the deepest part of Hell he possibly could, then leave me alone while I figure out a way to get him out."

"Dean, sometimes it's better to let the dead stay dead," Mary said. "It isn't easy, but you don't know what the consequences of resurrecting someone could be."

"No, I know perfectly well what the consequences could be. I know about your deal to bring Dad back, and I know what the price was. And I don't give a fuck. I'm going to bring Sam back if it's the last thing I do. I'm bringing him back even if I burn in Hell for it."

They sat in silence for a long moment before Mary spoke again. "Dean, what can we do to help?"

"I don't know," Dean said. He picked up the pages of Sam's final letter and leafed through them, entire sections memorized from how many times he read through it. "I don't _know_."

* * *

" _So, thank you. For everything. I know that we haven't always been on the best terms, but you've always been my brother. You've always been there for me when I needed you, even if you were so angry you would have rather bashed my brains in than save me. You always chose to save me._

" _I'm leaving the amulet with this letter. I know you haven't worn it in years. I don't know if you want to wear it again, or if it still means anything to you. I_ do _want you to know that the memories you saw in Heaven after Roy and Walt killed us weren't the ones I would want to spend eternity reliving. I don't know how, but I think it was one of Zachariah's tricks. Maybe you'll see the real version of my greatest memories when you get to Heaven. I won't be there to enjoy them with you, but hopefully the Sam from your memories will make it easier on you._

" _It isn't easy knowing the fate that I'm willingly throwing myself into, but it helps to know that you'll be alive and well with your family. Don't worry about me, and don't blame yourself for my decisions. I wanted to do this. I thought that it was for the best, and I hope that you'll find happiness."_

"How could you expect me to find happiness while you're in Hell, Sammy?" Dean asked the empty room. The words blurred on the page, and he wasn't sure if it was because of unshed tears or the level of alcohol pumping through his veins. Both of his parents were trying to help get Sam back, but none of them knew where to begin.

" _It'll be my memories of you, and all that you've done for me, that get me through the next eternity._

" _Love, Sam."_

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Dean isn't exactly as happy as Sam believed that he would be, and the letter isn't helping him find closure. The family Sam left behind isn't as loving as he believed they would be. It's not a good time for anyone involved.

1-2 chapters left to wrap it all up!

Please leave a review before you go.


	7. A Final Prayer

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

After a month, Dean saw how far John and Mary were willing to go to help him help Sam.

It wasn't far at all. They looked at books in the Men of Letters' library with Dean, but they were more focused on each other and the years lost between them than they were on the words written on the ancient, yellowing pages. Words that could potentially spare their son an eternity of torment at the hands of The Devil himself.

"Dad had a son with another woman," Dean said when he finally had enough of their pretend perfection. The stolen glances and whispered sweet nothings that they thought he couldn't hear.

"What?" Mary asked, pulling away from John. "When?"

"How do you know about that, Dean?" John asked, glaring.

"After you died, he called your old cell for help. Except that he was already dead at that point and eaten by ghouls who wanted to get back at you for killing their family by killing your family," Dean said. "It was really nice to know that you would drop everything and go to Kate and Adam when you found out he was your son, but you couldn't be bothered to help when I was dying after receiving an electric shock strong enough to give me a massive heart attack. And you can't be bothered to put real effort towards helping Sam now. Would you change your mind and help more if I told you that Adam was in The Cage? That he's been there since the first time Sam trapped Lucifer because Adam said 'yes' to Michael, and there probably isn't a single piece of his soul left to be salvaged?"

Both of his parents turned several shades paler.

"John, what is he talking about?" Mary asked, her tone cold and demanding. The kind that Dean imagined she would use if Sam and Dean got in trouble growing up with her still around.

"Dean, keep your mouth shut about them," John said.

And John could try and silence Dean all he wanted, but the truth was already out and Mary heard it. Did she feel like it was a betrayal towards her? Because Dean sure as hell had felt that way when he found out about Adam and the normal life he'd been allowed. That Adam had gotten to know the John that Dean only got for four years and Sam never got.

"No, Dean," Mary said. "I want to hear more about this. Please, keep talking."

The look that his father had on his face would've scared Dean into silence years ago, back before John's death and before Dean realized that his father hadn't been the hero he once believed.

"Which part? Maybe that Dad was probably fucking Kate while Sam and I were alone in a motel room somewhere else?"

"Mary, look—"

"I don't want to hear it, John," Mary said, storming out of the room.

John turned his attention to Dean. "I don't know who you are anymore," he said.

"Did you ever?" Dean asked. "Did you ever once take the time to get to know who I was? I'm what you made me into!"

"I'm going to talk to your mother," John said.

He walked away, and Dean yelled after him, "Why don't you both just leave and take your second honeymoon somewhere else if you're not going to help me save _Sam_?"

And they did. They left, and Dean continued looking for answers on his own.

* * *

Two months after Sam's sacrifice, Mary knocked on the bunker's door. Alone.

"I thought you were off with Dad," Dean said.

He stepped aside and let her in, helping her with the single bag of belongings she had.

"I don't know who he is anymore," she said. "So much has changed."

Dean shrugged. "He lived without you for more than twenty years. I'm not sure he remembers how to live _with_ you."

"Maybe that's the problem," Mary said. "He had twenty years without me, and he became a stranger. He had a child with another woman. I didn't expect that to hurt as much as it had, and it's ridiculous to think that he'd become a monk or something after I died. It's just… it hurt to realize that there was another woman and a son who wasn't mine. It still hurts."

"We've all changed," Dean said.

"I never got the chance to," Mary said. "I'm still expecting to wake up at home with an infant and a four-year-old. Safe and free from the hunting life."

"Hate to break it to you, Mom, but this isn't a dream that you can escape by simply opening your eyes."

"I know," Mary said. "That's why I'm here. If this isn't a dream, then I should be helping get Sam out of his nightmare. A mother should always do anything she can to keep her children safe, or get them to safety."

"And Dad?"

"I don't know. We felt it better to go our separate ways for now."

"Well," Dean said, "I'm glad for the help."

Mary's small smile was as soft as he remembered from his short childhood. "Let's get to work."

* * *

Three months after Sam's sacrifice, Dean and Mary had gone through every book in the library even remotely related to angels, Hell, and The Cage. Dean didn't want to lose hope, but it was getting harder and harder to hold onto it, too.

"Dean, maybe we need to try something else," Mary said.

"Bobby would know what to do."

"Who's Bobby?"

"A family friend. He was like a second father to us."

"What happened to him?"

"Shot in the head," Dean said. "Of all the ways for a hunter to die."

"I'm sorry," Mary said.

Dean nodded. "Thanks, but he's not gonna be helping us, so we have to figure out something else."

"I'm not sure there are any books left that would be useful."

"That's fine. I've never been a bookworm like Sam anyway. We'll just have to get a little more hands-on."

* * *

Four months after Sam's sacrifice, it became clear to Dean that no demon would be willing to deal with him. It became a systematic process. He summoned a demon in a Devil's Trap, told them what he wanted, then killed them when they said nothing could be done.

He hoped that he could at least draw Crowley's attention, but he seemed more willing to let his demons die than he was to poke at The Cage.

Rowena was the strongest witch he knew, but she had been completely out of contact (and hiding away somewhere tropical, Dean assumed).

No angels would answers his open prayers. Cas refused to answer prayers or traditional phone calls.

He was on his own, and Sam had been in Hell for what would feel like forty years for him (and what felt like four hundred years for Dean). The duration that Dean had been there. The problem was that Sam's total was now at two hundred twenty years in Hell. For a soul that was flayed from the first trip, he didn't want to think about what an extra forty years would do.

What if Sam was irrevocably broken by the time Dean saved him?

Sam's letter still taunted him, and Mary had to hide it from him when she found him rereading it again and again when he was supposed to be sleeping.

Not that he slept any better without it.

* * *

Dean didn't remember the fifth month after Sam's sacrifice. He drank and drank. Mary tried to stop him on more than one occasion, but she always ended up sitting at the table with him, a drink of her own in hand.

"Time in Hell moves differently," Dean said.

"I know," Mary said. "You tell me that every time you've had a little too much to drink."

"I broke after thirty years… I don't know how Sam will handle all of this. It's been too long."

"You told me that you've saved him from his memories of Hell before."

"Yeah, well," Dean said, "that only worked because I had help from Cas."

"You have me this time," Mary said.

"I know."

The problem was that Dean didn't know if their mother would be enough to help Sam heal from Hell.

* * *

Six months after Sam's sacrifice, John showed up at the bunker. Dean let him and Mary talk in private. Whatever was going on between them, he had more important things to deal with. He didn't need their relationship issues piled onto his own mountains of issues.

John didn't apologize to him. He didn't say much at all, but there was a strange role reversal between them.

Dean was the one who drank until he couldn't remember his own name, then passed out and had to be helped to bed.

John stayed silent and let him, taking care of him when he finally reached his limit.

But it was still Sam that he asked for when he was too drunk to remember any other words.

"You're drinking yourself to death, Dean," John said.

"You're one to talk."

"I know that I've messed up more times than I can count, but does that have to mean it's too late for me to try making up for any of it?"

"Sam?"

"From what Mary tells me, you've tried everything you could to get him back. It might be time to let it go."

"I can't let Sam go," Dean said. "I never could."

"I know," John said. "Because that's how I raised you, isn't it?"

Dean tried to speak again, but only incoherent noises escaped his mouth.

"Just get some sleep," John said.

No matter how he felt about John, he'd always been pretty damn good at following his orders.

* * *

Seven months after Sam's sacrifice, Dean was close to losing the remaining remnants of his hope. But he refused to give up. No matter how hopeless it seemed, he knew that Sam would endlessly try to save him if their roles were reversed.

He spent the day cleaning Sam's room, getting rid of the dust that accumulated over the months and straightening the few belongings that Sam always kept in their proper places. It wasn't a difficult task, but Dean took his time doing it.

When he was done, Dean sat on the edge of Sam's bed. He changed the sheets and tucked in the blankets. It was ready to be used, but its owner wasn't reachable by humans, and demons, angels, and witches didn't want to take the risk brought about by trying to reach him.

He had one last plan. Desperate times called for desperate measures, even if those measures might mean drawing divine wrath upon himself.

Dean cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

"Look," he said, "I know you're in the middle of a family reunion and all, and I'm not even sure if you can hear me. I'm not sure if you're listening, or if you even care. But Sydney, that babysitter back in Fall River, said that when she prayed to you, she knew that you were listening. Well, I'm desperate and I think it's worth a shot.

"Amara, we had a connection between us. I was the first face you saw after you were released from the Mark of Cain. As much as I want to take credit for it, it was Sam who freed you, accidentally or not. I don't know if you still feel a connection with me, or if I still mean anything to you. After all, what's one human's life in the grand scheme of things?

"Whether you care about me or not, I need your help. You're my last resort. Sam is in The Cage with Lucifer. He has been for seven months, and I need to get him out. I can't live knowing that he's going through unimaginable torment. Every second that he's down there, I can feel myself die a little more inside. I don't know how long it will be until there's nothing left. And I know you've already given me the gift of my mother, but I learned to live without her through the years. I never learned to live without Sam. I'm begging you. Please."

Dean took another deep breath when he finished, and let his head hang when silence was all that filled the room.

"Dean, you prayed… to _me_?"

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Amara is Dean's final, final hope. Will she help him get his brother back like he helped her get her brother back?

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! Your support keeps me going.


	8. Completing the Circle

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

This is it.

* * *

"Nobody prays to me. Only to my brother. I thought… I thought I'd be forgotten again," Amara said.

She looked the same as she had the first time Dean ever saw her. The flowing black dress. The dark eyes that held far more knowledge than any human could comprehend. The perplexed expression that made Dean feel like a science experiment under observation.

He still felt an inexplicable draw towards her. An infinite curiosity about her, and he knew that he would never be able to kill her, just as she predicted. Even if he had the means, he wouldn't be able to bring himself to go through with it.

"Yeah, well, I'm kinda desperate here."

"So you said."

"My brother is in Lucifer's Cage; can you get him out?" Dean asked. No point in dancing around why he prayed to her.

"Of course, I can get him out," Amara said, like she was offended he had to ask at all. "You should be asking if I _will_ save your brother."

"Will you?"

"I don't know," she said.

Dean was ready to pull his hair out. He didn't want to play games with her, he just wanted his brother back. Was that too much to ask for?

Amara stepped closer and placed her hand on Dean's chest. "I can feel your love for him," she said. "It's more love than I've ever felt for _my_ brother."

"Like I said, I never learned to live without Sammy."

"What would you give in return?"

"What do you want?" Dean asked. He hadn't expected there would be a price, but there wasn't much that he _wasn't_ willing to trade in exchange for Sam's safety.

"It should be something of equivalent value to you."

Dean snorted out half of a laugh. "I don't think anything like that exists."

"Then, how about family for family?"

"What do you mean by that?" Dean asked.

If he traded John and Mary for Sam, they'd be back to where they started. He had no doubt that Sam would see their absence as his fault, and he would try another idiotic tactic to get them back for Dean.

And around and around they would go.

"Your memories of your parents in return for Sam being released from Lucifer's cage," Amara said. "I wouldn't kill them; I can feel how much that would hurt you. It isn't my intention to hurt you."

"How would that work?"

"They would be like strangers to you. Any memories of them would be vague, just out of your reach. Their shapes would be replaced by dark figures, and you won't remember what they looked like or sounded like. You won't remember what they've said or done."

He spent years without his parents, and almost his entire life without his mother. If they're still alive, he could still rebuild relationships with them. It'd be a fresh start.

Honestly, that was a small price to pay.

"That's it?"

"That's it," Amara confirmed.

"I'll do it," Dean said. "I'll take that deal."

* * *

Dean spent an entire day pacing, waiting for Amara to return with Sam. He still had his memories of his parents—and he neglected to tell them that he'd made a deal at all—so he figured that she was still working to get Sam out. At the same time, he wondered how long it should take _God's sister_ to get into a cage and get out a human soul, the kind that The Cage wasn't built to contain.

His mom told him that he was going to wear a path into the floor. His dad told him that he should put his energy towards something useful.

It all felt too normal, and he hated it. The normal life was what Sam craved. Dean? He was happy with his baby and his brother. He only needed the open road and the thrill of the hunt.

Which made waiting one of his most hated activities.

The sun had set by the time Amara returned, interrupting his session of staring at the wall in Sam's room. The room that would soon be occupied by its proper owner once again. The thought left Dean giddy, feeling like a kid on Christmas morning. A normal kid in the kind of normal house Sam wanted and unable to contain the excitement of opening normal gifts.

But she was finally back, albeit alone, and all Dean wanted to know was where Sam was.

"Dean," she said, "I'm sorry."

"What? What are you sorry for? Where's Sam?"

"I _did_ save Sam, but I couldn't save him in the way that you wanted."

"What does that even mean?" Dean asked. He had his suspicions, but his heart was pounding fast enough to leave him shaking and loud enough that the roar of it in his ears was difficult to hear over.

"His soul was in tatters," Amara said. "He would not have been able to handle returning to Earth in a physical body, so I gave him the peace of Heaven. He'll be able to heal there, and you'll join him one day when your time is up."

Dean shook his head, running one hand through his hair. "That's impossible. The reapers have it out for us. He's in The Empty."

"Yes, I ran into that reaper when I was delivering Sam to Heaven. You won't have to worry about her anymore. You won't be heading to The Empty," Amara said.

"But Sam still isn't _here_."

"No," Amara said, looking genuinely remorseful that she hadn't fulfilled the deal in the way that Dean hoped for. "And he will never be here. He would have been unable to cope with his memories of The Cage. You didn't feel his soul, but I did. I'm doing what I believe is best for him. So, I won't take the memories of your parents, like I'd said. You didn't get what you really wanted from me."

"But his soul will heal in Heaven?"

"It will begin to. His recovery will be a long one, but he has an eternity now."

When tears started to spill down his cheeks, Amara wrapped her arms around him in a surprisingly gentle show of comfort. "I'm so sorry, Dean," she said.

"My one job was to protect him," Dean choked out. "And I just kept failing."

"You did the best that you could, Dean. It's right for him to be in Heaven. Let him heal, and he'll be there when you finish your time here."

"How am I supposed to stop myself from joining him right now?"

"I can feel your sadness," Amara said, "but I can also feel your strength."

"What if it's not enough?"

"It will be. I've seen you stare down death when you carried all those souls in you. And if you need me, I will always listen to your prayers."

Dean shook his head. She didn't understand that the strength he had at that time when he had a soul bomb within him came from knowing that it would save Sam and the world he lived in.

His only solace was in the fact that Sam was no longer suffering. That he would never suffer at the hands of demons or Lucifer again.

Could he really pull Sam away from peace for his own selfish reasons again?

* * *

Dean found himself in darkness, an aching familiarity about the place that he couldn't quite figure out. A long forgotten dream, perhaps. He was there for something, but what?

Lights turned on and illuminated the room, blinding him for a moment with their sudden intensity.

"Dean?"

Dean turned and squinted at the person standing in the archway between two rooms.

"Sammy?"

He looked young, and the grin that broke out on his face made him look younger still. He had the haircut that Dad hated, the one where his bangs reached down a little past his eyebrows before flaring out in curls. Then, Dean realized, with a glance at himself, that he was a lot younger, too.

And Dean remembered. He remembered the pain followed by numbness. He'd died alone, but he'd never have to be alone again. Not when he shared Heaven with Sam.

Amara had told the truth, and Dean would admit that he doubted her a few times throughout the years, wondering if Sam was still in Hell and she'd only been placating him.

"This is…?" Dean asked.

"The night you came to get me from Stanford," Sam said. "How long has it been, you know, on Earth?"

"Since you pulled that fucking stupid plan off, which we will be discussing _at length_? A couple of years."

"Dean…"

Dean shrugged. "I kept hunting. Without backup, hunts don't always end well."

Sam looked even sadder, and Dean couldn't describe how much he'd missed the expressiveness of Sam, the way he was always so open with his emotions written all over his face. On the face of early-twenties Sam, it made the old protectiveness in Dean flare up. The one he felt back when he still thought Sam was a kid who needed his protection.

In truth, he didn't think Sam ever really needed protection from anyone. He'd handled anything life threw at him, and just kept going.

"Mom and Dad?" Sam asked.

Dean laughed. "They actually left the bunker and bought their own house. Got normal jobs and took the occasional hunt on the weekend. They invited me to stay with them, but that place would never have been a home to me, you know? They had each other, and I had hunting. You got any beers here?"

Sam smiled and pulled a beer for Dean and one for himself from the fridge. They sat across from each other at the table.

"My favorite," Dean said.

"I know," Sam said. "I used to keep a couple bottles of it in the fridge while I actually was at Stanford. Just in case… in case you came by."

"I did, but I always thought that you wouldn't want to see me. I was part of the life you didn't want."

"I didn't want the hunting," Sam said. "I always wanted my family. My brother."

"I'm here now."

"Yeah."

"How have you been?" Dean asked after a long silence. "When Amara got you here, she said that your soul was in tatters."

"The beginning was pretty hard," Sam said. "My memories of The Cage kept making their way into the memories that replayed here. But not as much anymore."

"Not as much meaning that they still do sometimes?"

Sam nodded and took a long drink from his beer, finishing what was left in the bottle. A little paler than he was before, but Dean knew how horrifying Sam's memories of Hell had always been. And it always killed him on the inside that he'd been of little to no help when Sam fought those memories on Earth.

"We can face them together this time," Dean said.

Sam nodded again.

"I do have to ask, though," Dean said. "Why this memory? I mean, I pulled you away from your life, and then Jess…"

"This is where it all began," Sam said. He ducked his head a bit, his hair covering his eyes and a shy smile on his face that Dean hadn't seen in years. "This is where we began our adventure to save the world together, whether we knew it at the time or not. And yeah, it wasn't always easy and we may have been at odds with each other sometimes, but we made it through everything together. We really did save the world. How many other people can say that?"

"I don't know," Dean said, "but I'll drink to that."

Sam got them both another beer, and they clinked the bottles together before taking a drink.

"Where should we go next?" Sam asked.

"Why do we have to be in a rush?" Dean asked. "We've been running against time for our entire lives. Let's just take a minute for ourselves now. Sit back and enjoy some cold ones."

"Will you tell me about what happened after I was gone?"

"Sure," Dean said. "But not yet. I don't know how long it's been for you, but it's been years for me. I don't want to reunite with you, and then start talking about how I spent my time without you."

"Okay," Sam said. "There's a TV in the other room, do you think Heaven's cable package is any good?"

"Let's find out."

Sitting in second-hand furniture that had rips in the fabric and stains Dean didn't want to think about, a beer in his hand, chips on the coffee table, and his little brother (who no longer seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders) next to him after so long, Dean thought that he could get used to this.

After years alone, Heaven with Sam really did feel like a paradise.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** And so it ends. Amara did save Sam, but the only way to save him was to send his soul to Heaven.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this work! I hope that there are other stories of mine that you enjoy or will enjoy.

Please leave a review, and I hope to see you on another adventure!


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